Everything Is Tuberculosis: Introduction Summary & Analysis

James Watt, a man famous for making steam engines efficient and subsequently fueling the industrial revolution, began a new project at the end of the 18th century. His previous innovations shaped the world as we know it today, but he wanted this new project to be his most influential—he wanted to find a chemical cure for phthisis, a lung disease that killed his daughter and infected his son. This disease, one that causes coughing, night sweats, fevers, and “the physical wasting of the body” was commonly referred to as consumption. Though Watt attempted to create a machine to help heal those suffering from consumption, he was ultimately unsuccessful. His son died in 1804.

By the following century, phthisis was referred to as tuberculosis. John Green’s great-uncle, Stokes Goodrich, was often ill as a child. At the time, illness was believed to stem from personal failures, so his family thought his sickness came from consuming coffee and candy at a young age. In the 1920s, Goodrich was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was given only two months to live. His grandfather, a county doctor, documented his grandson’s disease but could do nothing to save him; Goodrich died in 1930. Green reflects on the emotional toll of being a medical professional unable to save a loved one and goes on to apply this plight to the larger human race. Despite our ability to create numerous technological innovations, we cannot always save the ones we love.

Although much time has passed, tuberculosis (often referred to as TB) still killed over a million people in 2023, a number that is higher than the number of people killed by “malaria, typhoid, and war combined.” In the last two centuries alone, over a billion people have died from TB. While Covid-19 became the deadliest disease from 2020 to 2022, TB was once again the deadliest disease as of 2023. Now, there is a cure for TB, yet we still live in a world that is often ravaged by the disease. TB persists in countries without access to proper treatment, so thousands of doctors will be helpless as they watch patients die of the disease.

Everything is Tuberculosis is an exploration of TB’s cure, which wasn’t discovered until the mid-1950s. This disease has indelibly shaped human history and acts as a form of injustice. As previously stated, illnesses have been perceived in various ways over the course of time, from bodily failures to personal deficiencies, to demonic possession. These understandings of disease affect and have affected both the treatment of TB and who becomes infected with TB. We now know TB to be an airborne bacterial infection, one that can be worsened by other health issues like malnutrition. Because of this, and TB’s ability to spread in crowded spaces, it is most likely to affect impoverished populations. Green understands the history of TB to reflect the state of humanity, and when his wife, Sarah, jokes that he thinks everything is tied to TB, he agrees.